Lupita Nyong’o was teased about her skin color

Breakout actress Lupita Nyong’o has been turning heads since her outstanding performance in 12 Years a Slave, and in a heartfelt speech she delivered at Essence magazine’s seventh annual Women in Hollywood luncheon, she revealed a childhood secret. The 30-year-old actress admitted that as a young girl, she wished for lighter skin. “I got teased and taunted about my skin,” she told the audience. “My one prayer to God was that I would wake up lighter skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of the mirror because I wanted to see my face first. Every day I would feel the disappointment of being just as dark as the day before.”

The teasing led her to plead with God: if he made her skin lighter, she would stop eating sugar cubes and would never lose her school sweater again. Lupito credited Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek for inspiring her to accept her identity, saying “She was dark as night and was in all the magazines and on runways… I couldn’t believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me as beautiful” Lupito left the audience with an uplifting message: “I hope that my presence on your screen and my face in magazines may lead you, young girls, on a beautiful journey,” she said. “That you will feel the validation of your external beauty, but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside.” ~Yara Matar